Leamington man who bit taxi driver during attempted robbery is jailed

And Craig Miller was jailed for four-and-a-half years after a judge heard he was already serving a prison sentence for blinding a man in one eye during an attack in a pub.

Miller, 24, of Cashmore Avenue, Leamington, had pleaded guilty at Warwick Crown Court to the attempted robbery of the taxi driver and having an offensive weapon.

Prosecutor Paul Fairley said that in the early hours of July 29 last year the taxi driver picked up two men in Leamington to take them to an address in Linton Close, Warwick.

When they arrived, the second man said he wanted to pay the next day, and that he had agreed that with the taxi controller – but the driver asked to be paid straight away.

So that man got out of the car, leaving the door open, and went into the address to get some cash.

Miller also got out and walked away, but returned after the driver got out to close the door the other man had left open.

He had a bag from which he took a length of metal which looked like a car aerial and swung it at the driver, catching him to the side of his head and cutting his ear.

Miller continued to swing it at the driver, demanding: “Give me your money, give me your f***ing money.”

The driver managed to grab hold of the weapon, and as they struggled Miller bit him to his upper arm, at which the driver let go of him and got back into the car.

But as he drove off, Miller lashed out at the car with the weapon, and he was arrested after being identified from a DNA swab taken from the bite he had inflicted.

Mr Fairley said that Miller had two previous convictions for robbery, and in December had been jailed for two years and eight months for inflicting grievous bodily harm.

That had followed an incident in a Leamington pub when Miller had punched his victim with such force that the man’s eye ‘effectively exploded in its socket,’ blinding him in that eye.

Simon Hunka, defending, said the robbery had taken place three months before that incident, and asked the judge to consider what the total sentence would be if both matters had been dealt with together.

He said the bite had not broken the skin, and argued that, but for the words ‘give me your f***ing money,’ it would have been charged as an assault with a sentencing starting point of 18 months.

Mr Hunka said Miller had had an issue with drink and drugs, but seemed to have turned his life around, getting a job as a scaffolder and forming a stable relationship.

But when an aunt to whom he was particularly close, and who had given him a significant degree of support, passed away a week or so earlier, he had turned back to drink and drugs.

Jailing Miller, Recorder Christopher Tickle said he was taking into account the fact that he had served the equivalent of 12 months of the sentence imposed in December.